Find the Lead That Might Do the Job

Pages: Page 4 of 4

Dealer: East
Vuln: E-W
Scoring: IMPs
  1. spadeK 10 6
  2. heart5 4
  3. diamondJ 10 8 7 3
  4. club8 7 4
  1. spadeJ 8 7 3 2
  2. heartA 3
  3. diamondA Q
  4. clubK Q 3 2
club diamond heart spade NT
N - - - - -
S - - - - -
E 6 5 4 7 7
W 5 5 4 7 7
Green square in centre
  1. spadeA Q 9
  2. heartQ 9 6 2
  3. diamondK 9 6 5
  4. clubA 5

Contract: 6spade
Declarer: West
Lead: diamondJ
  1. spade5 4
  2. heartK J 10 8 7
  3. diamond4 2
  4. clubJ 10 9 6
Double dummy analyser: makeable contracts
West North East South
1heart Pass
1spade Pass 1NT* Pass
2club~ Pass 3spade# Pass
5spade! Pass 6spade+ Pass
Pass Pass

* 12-16
~ Crowhurst enquiry
# 15-16 with three spades
! bid 6spade with good trumps
+ OK!

South ruffs diamondK and West overruffs. A spade to the nine, a diamond ruff and a two more rounds of spades starts to put the squeeze on South. In fact declarer can establish a heart winner but cannot return to dummy to cash it because of the lack of entries, and so is defeated.

The winning line is to finesse spadeQ and draw one more round before turning the attention to diamonds, but would declarer have chosen to adopt this line?
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